We are always looking for talented, capable independent contractors who are willing to be as dedicated to the satisfaction of our customers as we are.

Babbletype's transcription and translation services are focused on qualitative market research. We transcribe interviews, focus groups and similar recordings (in English or other languages) into professional transcripts in English.

The company has been in existence for many years and under current ownership since 2009. We transcribe thousands of recordings monthly. Babbletype is professionally managed and has a long history of paying our people with clockwork regularity.

If you are a serious independent contractor we would be glad to hear from you.

This document is a Google Form we use for applications. To read more about Babbletype and our products and services, visit www.Babbletype.com.

If you're a transcriptionist, read the information in "For transcription contractors" below. If you're a translator, read "For translation contractors". If you are a proofreader, read "For proofreading contractors."

NOTE: Transcribers are in more demand than proofreaders. We recommend you start by applying as a transcriber first.

Then, if those opportunities fit what you are looking for, complete the form at the bottom of the page to apply.

Information for transcription contractors

Babbletype is in the transcription business. We start with an audio recording of people talking and convert it into written transcripts. The recordings we work with include single speakers, one-on-one interviews, and focus group recordings with several people talking. Subject matter can be almost anything: from consumer through business, technical, medical, pharmaceutical, and so on. But, broadly speaking, most of our work is general transcription, as opposed to say, true medical, legal or other specialized forms of transcription.

Please note that Babbletype only works with native English speaking transcription contractors. To be considered a native English speaker, you must either have been born and raised in, or currently reside in, a country where English is the primary language spoken and the primary language learned by people residing there. People born or resident in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand are considered to be native English speakers. Native English speakers from other English-speaking countries, such as South Africa and the Caribbean are considered on a case by case basis.

Here's how this works. Babbletype operates on a daily assignment cycle. New work is posted once each day about 6PM EST. You can then review, select and sign up to work on an assignment. All assignments are due back 22 hours later, at 4PM the next day

Once you are in our system, you will receive an email once each day letting you know about new available assignments as they are released each day. If you don’t have time available to work that day, you don’t need to do anything. If you do have time, you click a link to our assignment tool, pick an assignment to work on, and sign up to do it. The amount of work available varies. Sometimes there will be very large amounts of work available, and sometimes less.

Now, let's talk about how Babbletype pays. The range of rates Babbletype currently offers is listed in the current rates section of the application page. All of these rates are quoted on a per audio minute basis. A one hour long recording of an interview, for example, would be 60 audio minutes long, and pay 60 times the per audio minute rate. Babbletype doesn't support any other type of payment system, such as per word or line or page. Different types of work pay more or less, depending on how much time they take to do, but all offer roughly the same earning power in terms of the time you can expect to spend. We do offer rate increases for challenging audio files, but do not otherwise negotiate our rates or terms. Babbletype processes payments weekly, and we use PayPal to send you payments for your work, so you'll need an account, which is free.

And that's about it. You can work when you want to, at whatever time works for you, provided you meet our deadlines. Babbletype adds you to our system, emails you when work is available, and pays you weekly for the audio minutes you transcribe.

If the above sounds like a good fit for you, please go ahead and complete the application. Thanks for considering us!

Information for translation contractors

Babbletype is in the transcription business, so the type of translation work we need done may be slightly different from what you are used to. Our work always starts with an audio recording of people talking, and it’s our job to convert it into written transcripts. In your case, this means that instead of starting from a written document in one language and translating it into another, here you’ll start with an audio recording in one language, and then translate it directly into a written transcript in English.

So, you just listen in the first language, translate in your head, and then write down the text of what the person said in English. This is easier than normal text translation, since it’s much more like the work of an interpreter than that of a translator. We need an accurate and complete translation, but as with interpreting, we don’t need a precise word-for-word translation as long as the meaning of what the person said is complete and accurate. Note that nearly all of our translation assignments are from a non-English language into English.

The recordings we work with include single speakers, one-on-one interviews, and focus group recordings with several people talking. Subject matter can be almost anything: from consumer through business, technical, medical, pharmaceutical and so on. But our work is market research oriented, and almost never so technical as to be a problem for any good, general translator. However, internet research on specific technical terms is required.

Please note that Babbletype only hires and works with translators who are native speakers of one of the languages in the language pair they translate.

Here’s how this works. We start by getting you into our system, which is what this application is all about. Then when we have translation work available from your language into English, we’ll send you an email. If you’re available, follow the instructions in the email to select and request an assignment. If you’re not available, you don’t need to do anything.

If you do request an assignment, you’ll probably get it, but it’s not guaranteed. If a lot of the contractors in our system respond to our email, some might be left without something to do. We’ll try not to disappoint you, but it will happen. If you do get an assignment, we’ll send you an email with all the instructions you need to complete it. Deadlines are normally 24 hours from the time you receive the assignment. All times are US Eastern Time. Generally, depending on what you have asked for, a Babbletype assignment will take no more than four or five hours to finish, so you have plenty of time to get it done before the deadline.

Now, let’s talk about how we pay. The rates Babbletype currently offers for translation into English are listed in the current rates section of the application page. All rates are quoted on a per audio minute basis. An hour-long audio recording of an interview, for example, would be 60 minutes of audio, and we would pay 60 times the audio minute rate quoted here. It’s important to note that Babbletype does not support any other type of payment system, such as per word or line or page, and we don’t negotiate rates on a job by job basis.

Babbletype processes payments weekly, and we use PayPal to send you payments for your work, so you'll need an account, which is free.

And that’s about it. Babbletype adds you to our system and emails you when work is available. We will not have a need for translation for your specific language all the time, but when we do have it available, you’ll be in our system, and hear about it first. The time you spend now is an investment in one more way to add income over time.

If the above sounds like a good fit for you, please go ahead and complete the application. Thanks for considering us!

Information for proofreaders

NOTE: Transcribers are in more demand than proofreaders. We recommend you start by applying as a transcriber first.

Babbletype is in the transcription business. We start with an audio recording of people talking and convert it into written transcripts. The recordings we work with include single speakers, one-on-one interviews, and focus group recordings with several people talking. Subject matter can be almost anything: from consumer through business, technical, medical, pharmaceutical, and so on. But, broadly speaking, most of our work is general transcription, as opposed to say, true medical, legal or other specialized forms of transcription. We also do a great deal of translation — converting audio recordings in foreign languages into written transcripts in English.

Please note that Babbletype only works with native English speaking transcription contractors. To be considered a native English speaker, you must either have been born and raised in, or currently reside in, a country where English is the primary language spoken and the primary language learned by people residing there. People born or resident in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand are considered to be native English speakers. Native English speakers from other English-speaking countries, such as South Africa and the Caribbean are considered on a case by case basis.

All of this work needs to be of the highest quality. “Quality” in our world means a few different things. First, it means that the content is accurate against the recording, with no meaningful content that is incorrect or missing. Second, it means that the written content needs to be in clean, professional English, without obvious errors of typing, spelling, punctuation or grammar.

Proofreading for Babbletype is of course similar to all proofreading, in that you read and correct written documents, so that the English language quality is at a professional level. For typical English transcripts, this work is straightforward. For translations from other languages, it can be a little more involved, with more effort needed to lightly rephrase passages to correct the English.

Where transcription proofreading differs, however, is in the fact that there is always an audio recording that the transcript was created from. There is always a potential for error in transcription. Transcriptionists capture the wrong meaning, or skip content, or mark small stretches they cannot understand. When proofreading transcripts, it’s always essential to have access to the original recording. You don’t listen to the whole thing, but you do check suspect content, and listen to sections marked as unclear to try to clean them up.

Here's how this works. Babbletype operates on a daily assignment cycle. New work is posted once each day about 6PM EST. You can then review, select and sign up to work on an assignment. All assignments are due back 22 hours later, at 4PM the next day

Once you are in our system, you will receive an email once each day letting you know about new available assignments as they are released each day. If you don’t have time available to work that day, you don’t need to do anything. If you do have time, you click a link to our assignment tool, pick an assignment to work on, and sign up to do it. The amount of work available varies. Sometimes there will be very large amounts of work available, and sometimes less. Generally proofreaders can pick up and complete multiple assignments throughout the day (one at a time) as transcription work is completed.

If you like, you can also pick up “audio auditing” work, which is fully listening to and correcting a failed transcription.

Now, let’s talk about how we pay. The rates Babbletype currently offers for English language proofreading are listed in the current rates section of the application page. Babbletype processes payments weekly, and we use PayPal to send you payments for your work, so you'll need an account, which is free.

And that's about it. You can work when you want to, at whatever time works for you, provided you meet our deadlines. Babbletype adds you to our system, emails you when work is available, and pays you weekly for the audio minutes you transcribe.

If the above sounds like a good fit for you, please go ahead and complete the application. Thanks for considering us!

Information about current rates paid to contractors

The following are Babbletype's current rates on a per audio minute basis. Rates vary by product type and level of difficulty:

* Spanish and Portuguese rates are lower because they are the most common languages, and as a result competition has driven down pricing for these specific languages.

Information about you

First name *

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City *

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State / Province *

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Choose

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Role applying for *

Choose

Native English Speaking Transcriptionist

Translator

Proofreader

Language *

IMPORTANT: If you are not a translator, choose English. If you chose "translator" above, select the language you are able to translate from into English.

Choose

English

Abkhaz

Adyghe

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Portuguese (European)

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Sanskrit

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Vilamovian

Volapük

Võro

Welsh

Wu

Xhosa

Xiang

Yiddish

Yoruba

Zhuang

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Quick test

FOR ALL TRANSCRIPTION CONTRACTORS

Click on the link below to open a web page containing a brief audio clip, then click the Download button to download it. Load the audio clip into an audio player. Please identify and separate out individual speakers; be sure to get the names correct. For anything you don't understand, please indicate as follows: (?) You may type the transcript in any transcription software or word processing program of your choosing. You may also type directly in the answer box found below. If you use some other program, be sure to paste your full and complete answer into the box. Missing or incomplete tests will be marked as fail. You can leave out "crutch" words such and um, and ah.

Go to http://goo.gl/gMLggx and COPY THE TEXT you find there to a local word processing file. Correct the text to proper English, and correct all terms and names, etc. When finished, paste the edited text into the Test answer text box below. Then press Submit.

FOR TRANSLATION CONTRACTORS

We have translation tests for most common languages. If your language is below, please use that test. If your language is not below, please just complete the English test above to give us an indication of your English language skills.

Go to the link next to the language you translate from to open a web page containing a brief audio clip, then click the Download button to download it. Load the audio clip into an audio player. Listen to the recording and translate into English in the box below.

IMPORTANT: By completing this application you understand that opportunities at Babbletype are limited to independent contractor roles, are not full time or part time employment, and do not constitute an employee relationship with Babbletype. Should your application be selected to move further in the process you understand that you will be required to complete an independent contractor agreement and submit appropriate tax forms for either your or your business before any paid work will be assigned to you. Further, you understand that any training from Babbletype - paid or unpaid - is limited to helping you understand Babbletype's operating process, systems and unique products, policies and formatting standards, all of which are intended to more closely align your services to our business and customer needs.

Your full name *

Your answer

Independent contractor acknowledgment *

I UNDERSTAND ANY OPPORTUNITY THAT MAY BE OFFERED TO ME WILL BE AS AN INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR

Required

What happens next? We will review your application and test in a few days. If you pass, we will contact you to discuss the next steps to join Babbletype's list of approved contractors.

That's it! Press submit when done

Thanks very much for taking the time to apply. Press Submit to complete your application.